Alain Maison­neuve, pres­i­dent and CEO of AGLC, said a na­tion­wide short­age of re­cre­ational mar­i­juana has af­fected Al­berta stores that they had hoped would have enough sup­ply to last for months.

“AGLC or­dered enough prod­uct to sup­port up to 250 re­tail stores in the first six months of le­gal­iza­tion; how­ever, as of Novem­ber 17 we have only re­ceived ap­prox­i­mately 20 per cent of what we had or­dered,” he said in a state­ment.

“While some li­censed pro­duc­ers have ful­filled their com­mit­ments, not all have. We con­tinue to work with them to fill stock. Un­for­tu­nately, re­gard­less of our ef­forts, we are see­ing the sup­ply of most prod­ucts run out.”

AGLC said it had taken steps to se­cure more prod­uct as loom­ing short­ages be­came ap­par­ent, con­tact­ing all pro­duc­ers with fed­eral li­cences to sell cannabis, but were un­suc­cess­ful.

Given the short­age, AGLC an­nounced it will tem­po­rar­ily halt ac­cept­ing new ap­pli­ca­tions as well as freez­ing ad­di­tional cannabis re­tail li­cences in­def­i­nitely. Ap­pli­cants will be en­ti­tled to a full re­fund of any fees should they wish to with­draw from the process.

AGLC spokes­woman Heather Hol­men said un­til sup­ply is sta­bi­lized, the fo­cus will be on Al­berta’s 65 cur­rently li­censed re­tail­ers, which will split weekly ship­ments evenly, with a smaller share kept for the agency’s on­line cus­tomers, many of whom live in com­mu­ni­ties not served by cannabis shops.

“It’s es­sen­tially be­ing ra­tioned,” she said, adding the prov­ince has con­tracted with 15 li­censed pro­duc­ers whose out­put has fallen well short of what had ini­tially been pledged.

“We’re not hoard­ing for our­selves. Weekly prod­uct will be split 65 ways equally, and re­tail­ers will have the op­tion to pur­chase up to that limit.”

The bomb­shell came just as NewLeaf Cannabis, which op­er­ates the most li­censed shops in Al­berta, this week opened eight stores, in­clud­ing four in Cal­gary.

NewLeaf CAO An­gus Tay­lor said the sit­u­a­tion is dev­as­tat­ing to those who fol­lowed the rules and in­vested sig­nif­i­cant money and re­sources into their busi­nesses on the be­lief there would be am­ple sup­ply of the drug, which was le­gal­ized by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment Oct. 17.

“This is go­ing to im­pact ev­ery cannabis re­tailer. We have 14 li­censed stores but our plan was to open 25, and now we don’t know when any of those li­cences will be is­sued,” he said, not­ing he ex­pects there will be enough sup­ply for the new stores that launched, but as prod­uct is sold it’s un­clear what they’ll be able to keep on the shelves.

As of Wed­nes­day, some 65 re­cre­ational cannabis re­tail­ers had been granted li­cences by AGLC, in­clud­ing 20 in Cal­gary. A quick re­view of AGLC’s own on­line cannabis shop found just 19 of 146 listed prod­ucts cur­rently in stock.

Ac­cord­ing to num­bers pro­vided by the city, there are cur­rently 104 ap­pli­ca­tions that have met all of the city’s cri­te­ria and only need to ob­tain a li­cence from AGLC along with a busi­ness per­mit.

Brandy MacInnis, se­nior plan­ning and pol­icy strate­gist, said the city is try­ing to de­ter­mine its next steps.

“The City ’s cannabis le­gal­iza­tion team is cur­rently look­ing into what this means to those cus­tomers cur­rently in the ap­provals or ap­peal process,” she said in a state­ment.

“The City will be con­tact­ing cannabis re­tail cus­tomers over the next few days with ad­di­tional in­for­ma­tion and op­tions for their con­sid­er­a­tion.”

Cam Bat­t­ley, chief cor­po­rate of­fi­cer of Al­berta-based Aurora Cannabis Inc., said given the still nascent na­ture of the in­dus­try, cou­pled with over­whelm­ing de­mand, sup­ply short­ages shouldn’t come as a ma­jor sur­prise.

But he ex­pects the bot­tle­neck cur­rently fac­ing the in­dus­try won’t be long-term.

“Al­berta is not alone in deal­ing with these con­cerns. We’re hear­ing ev­ery prov­ince and ter­ri­tory say­ing a ver­sion of the same thing,” Bat­t­ley said.

“This was to be an­tic­i­pated when we’re rolling out a very new and com­plex sys­tem. Ev­ery­body needs to step back and take a breath — ex­pect­ing per­fec­tion on Day 1 of such a com­plex new in­dus­try would be a lit­tle bit un­rea­son­able.”

Jeff Mooij, pres­i­dent of Four20 Pre­mium Mar­ket, said its most re­cent cannabis ship­ment from AGLC in­cluded a poster to hang on the door, in­form­ing cus­tomers that they were out of stock, a trou­bling sign the short­ages may be more than a mi­nor hic­cup.

We have 14 li­censed stores but our plan was to open 25, and now we don’t knowwhenany of those li­cences will be is­sued.

“I don’t know what to ex­pect. Ev­ery week’s dif­fer­ent, we’re not sure what level of in­ven­tory we’re get­ting and nei­ther does AGLC at this point in time be­cause … they ’re not get­ting what’s been promised, not even close,” he said.

“It’s a fur­ther hole we’re dig­ging for our­selves and it’s a scary en­vi­ron­ment to be in.”

Out­lets li­censed by the AGLC to sell re­cre­ational cannabis in Cal­gary (not all lo­ca­tions may be open for busi­ness):

It appears that many of the suppliers have learned how to do business in Canada. Don't put yourself out in any way, until the last second because governments have shown over and over that they have no problem changing the rules of the game whenever they feel like it. Consequences be damned. Pipeline approvals, alcohol "import" taxes, coal power plant contracts... you name it, the list is long and depressing. I don't blame these growers one bit for not wanting to produce a ton of product and then have the gov't decide, "maybe we won't legalize it, after all".

Better hope that some of these pot shops have deep pockets in terms of cash to maintain their leases and meet other financial obligations in the absence of a revenue source. So sad..........(Not).........but not surprising under JT's sponsorship of this ill-conceived and evidently poorly executed initiative.

Typical. Just when the state of this bloody city, province and country have pretty much driven me to wanting to live in a cannabis haze, there is none. (Haha)

AverageGuy - 2018-11-22

flameforever: Where there's a demand a supplier will step in to fill it. The underground growers are rubbing their hands in glee. Look for an uptick in the Hell's Angels financial reports this year.Maybe they'll even send a Christmas card to Trudeau as a thank you for his support.